Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerGov. Chris Christie called U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg a "partisan hack" at a town hall meeting this afternoon after the senator questioned Christie's plan to merge Rutgers-Camden and Rowan University.

The bad blood between New Jersey’s leading elected officials — Gov. Chris Christie and U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg — spilled into the open again today, this time over the proposed takeover of Rutgers-Camden by Rowan University.

Within minutes of stepping in front of a town hall audience in Manchester, Christie lit into Lautenberg, who has sent letters to state and federal officials questioning the controversial plan.

Dismissing the veteran senator with a lash of the tongue, Christie said: "We’re not going to listen to partisan hacks like Frank Lautenberg. He should be ashamed of himself."

But a spokesman for Lautenberg, Caley Gray, said the senator raised "reasonable questions about the impact of the merger."

Gray accused Christie of teaming up with Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and his South Jersey ally, the Democractic powerbroker George Norcross, "to launch a personal attack campaign on Senator Lautenberg to distract from the backroom merger deal that they’re trying to keep hidden from the public."

Norcross is chairman of Cooper Health Systems, which is partners with Rowan in a medical school to open in the fall in Camden.

It’s not the first time Christie and Lautenberg have traded punches in public. When the governor announced in 2010 that he was scrapping construction of a Hudson River tunnel. Lautenberg called the decision "one of the biggest policy blunders in New Jersey’s history."

Since then Christie has called Lautenberg someone who can only "blow hot air," and the senator has referred to Christie as "the king of liars."

This time the issue is Christie’s sweeping three-pronged plan to reorganize of the state’s higher education system. He says combining the two schools and creating a major research institution will be a huge economic and academic shot in the arm for the region.

Video: Chris Christie calls Frank Lautenberg a 'partisan hack'At a town hall meeting in Manchester Gov. Chris Christie called senator Frank Lautenberg a 'partisan hack' after the senator has questioned Christie's plan to merge Rutgers-Camden with Rowan University. Christie said he wasn't going to apologize for working with right-minded Democrats and that Lautenberg should put the country and the state first, not politics. (Video by Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger)

The South Jersey portion of the proposal has met resistance from many in the Rutgers community, who say their degrees will be devalued since Rowan lacks the prestige of the state university.

Opponents are also alarmed by the lack of detail about the plan that have been released so far, including how much it will cost and how it will be financed. Lautenberg raised many of those concerns in a couple of letters — one to Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Monday, asking him to look into the plan, and a more detailed one today to Christie and Sweeney.

"Suspicions have been raised that this decision has been crafted to benefit powerful political interests without regard for the impact of students, the academic institutions themselves, and the community" Lautenberg wrote in the letter to Duncan.

Lautenberg’s letter elicited a scalding response from Sweeney and 23 other elected officials on Wednesday as well as one from Norcross urging him to "stop taking cheap shots."

The officials said in an open letter: "While Senator Lautenberg has failed all of New Jersey on the issue of higher education, his callous disregard for South Jersey has been reprehensible. He seems to forget that he was elected to represent all the people of New Jersey."

Today, Christie didn’t pass up the opportunity to pile on, touting Sweeney as a steward of bipartisanship.

"Let’s reject Frank Lautenberg’s style of politics," Christie said. "I will not make any apologies for working with right-minded Democrats."

He instructed Lautenberg to take Sweeney to dinner and apologize, so he "can teach you how to be a bipartisan leader."

And putting an even finer point on his insults, Christie said some people say the 88-year-old Lautenberg should retire.

"Let me say this, I don’t disagree," he said.

The latest escalation of the feud between the two is seen as the beginning of a nasty primary battle for Lautenberg’s Senate seat in 2014. Sweeney recently set up a federal exploratory committee, signaling that he may well challenge the 27-year veteran.

While not addressing the rift between lawmakers from the southern and northern parts of the state, Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex), who has expressed interest in challenging Christie in 2013, chided the governor for his "partisan hack" comment.

"There’s always going to be issues that we disagree on," Buono said. "The way to move forward is not by name-calling and finger-pointing but by having an honest discussion. It’s time to turn the temperature down."